Trying To Let It Go

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Octo Octa "I'm Trying" from the "Let Me See You" 12"
(2011, 100% Silk). Video by Christopher Cote.

Free downloads here.

Image of the Day

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Ten of them, actually – classic photographs by the great Alfred Eisenstaedt, who was born today in 1898.

Image of the Day

Sydney Dance Company’s Juliette Barton, photographed by Will Davidson for last month's Harper's Bazaar Australia. The color and flow of the dress (Gucci) reminded me of the many beautiful translucent orange and red jellyfish we saw in the San Juans.

Click here to see more images from the same shoot.

Image of the Day

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E.O. Hoppé (1878-1972): Tilly Losch, dancer, England, 1928. From Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street at the National Portrait Gallery in London through the end of the month. Click here for a review by David Franchi. Go here for much more on E.O. Hoppé.

Happy Birthday Martha Graham

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Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 - April 1, 1991) photographed by Barbara Morgan – from the 1941 book Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photos – via Bruce Silverstein Gallery on Facebook.

Image Collector

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Some images that have caught my eye recently from around the world wide internet:

Street fashion shot at Jak & Jil

Photo by Valéry Lorenzo.

Rowena Sartin FW2010 – photo by Kyle Johnson. I love that shirt thing (not for me, for a lady, in case that is somehow unclear). Via ʜᴎᴦᴙ ᴳᵀᴴᴿ

Vintage Porsche (I think it's a 912 or a maybe a 911t?) via JJJJound

Unpublished photo of Isabeli Fontana in Alaïa by Ezra Petronio, from the forthcoming Self Service issue 33. (More on that later.)

Someone's Life by Gerard Malanga, published by Mörel (via The Silver Lining)

Bike shelf

Christian Rizzo | l’association Fragile: b.c, janvier 1545, fontainebleau at On The Boards through Sunday. Really deserves its own post.

EL GUINCHO | Bombay from MGdM | Marc Gómez del Moral. Not really into the song but I like the vidoe. Via Wooooo.

"Instead of Saying 'That's Impossible,' You Try It Out"

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Rest In Peace, Merce Cunningham.

"Mercier Philip Cunningham was born on April 16, 1919 in Centralia, Wash., the third of four children of Clifford Cunningham, a lawyer, and the former Mayme Joach." Above, Merce Cunningham in "Antic Meet," with design by Robert Rauschenberg, in 1958. Photo: Richard Rutledge/NYT.

Clive Barnes, reviewing the Cunningham company’s 1964 London season, wrote: “Mr. Cunningham is an iconoclast and is welcome in an art that has always suffered from a surfeit of icons and a deficiency of iconoclasts. In performances, night after night for a week, it becomes clear that, as with John Cage and even Robert Rauschenberg, Mr. Cunningham’s importance may primarily be as a propagandist and stimulant.” Above, Mr. Cage, left, Mr. Cunningham, center, and Mr. Rauschenberg in London in 1964. Photo: Douglas H. Jeffrey/The John Cage Trust/NYT.

Much more at The New York Times.

Rivers Arms

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Photos of the temporary performance and installation Mater Matrix Mother and Medium, a collaboration between artist Mandy Greer, choreographer/dancer Zoe Scofield, and musician and friend of the P.S. Morgan Henderson (Blood Brothers, Past Lives).

Henderson and Scofield rehearse

From Mandy Greer's description of the project:

Mater Matrix Mother and Medium began with the creation of a 200 ft.- long fiber river, created in part through a series of over 30 community events all over Seattle, where I [Mandy Greer] taught anyone willing to learn, how to crochet. I then took the fiber “pools” into the forest of Camp Long and spent nearly six weeks on a ladder crocheting the river into the trees, flowing from 25 feet up in the tree canopy to nearly touching the forest floor.

When we arrived for the performance last Thursday evening in West Seattle, Zoe Scofield was totally obscured inside what looked like a gigantic ball of fabric and knots at the end of the crocheted river. As Morgan's music built – he played a variety of instruments, including the clarinet and a weird little megaphone contraption – she unwrapped herself and came alive in the woods.

If it sounds like some hippy stuff, well, so be it – but I found Mater Matrix Mother and Medium to be one of the more complex 'nature-inspired' works of art I've seen, and a beautiful piece in both vision and sound. It's up through the end of the month August 23rd at Camp Long (5200 35th Ave SW in West Seattle), and definitely worth the trip, even without the performance element.

More info here.